WE MAY be living through the sixth great extinction. Rather than trying to preserve individual species, should we be focusing more of our efforts on saving entire ecosystems?

This is the thinking behind a new way of assessing the global health of nature – the Red List of Ecosystems. It has been developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and is based on its Red List of Threatened Species, which assesses threats to species from Paraná pine trees to pandas. But rather than attempting to conserve all ecosystems, like the original does for species, controversially the new list may highlight which ecosystems are beyond help.

Its launch, which will officially take place later this year, coincides with a change in emphasis for conservationists: rather than trying ...

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